No.

I assume “tankie” is a roundabout way to lump revolutionary leftists with those fomenting red-brown alliances. That is, a “tankie” in the modern day is a way to describe someone as Strasserist, NazBol, LaRouchite, etc.

Lowest approval out of all recent presidents and people want me to believe my single sympathy vote can save them. I don’t think I have the heart to tell some of them my voting habits when the time inevitably comes. Investors and major leaders already accepted the good numbers for a Trump victory and they’re hoping for a good year in business when he rolls around again, some fresh profit margins. They don’t understand that I’m not rich enough to decide, the rulers of the country already made their picks and they won’t accept less without some serious promises from Biden

The numbers are going up and there are far more campuses involved, iirc.

Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana, South Carolina, Oregon from what I can see. Check the latest NYTimes article. And yes, there are already mass arrests being made at these more recent campus protests. They are taking this very seriously.

I really thought Israel was gone in 2022 and was going to accept a silent death. Look how wrong I was to assume…

There is no value with Russian foreign policy right now, no mass movement to use the potential for heightened class contradiction. Besides, modern day Russia is just the hotbed for disguntled nationalists who only exist with even a modicum of power because of US strategic interests. The ideology guiding the ruling class of Russia is bland, incompatible with the concept of class struggle, and archaic. I see Russia to China as Canada is to the US. Do I really care that Canada may have better standards than the US or better foreign policy or better whatever? No, not really. I’m looking at countries that can actually do something useful for me, and the choices are between the US and China, not between Canada and Russia.

China > > > > > > North Korea > > > Russia

I think this would unironically turn those kids into Pol Potists, Maoists, and Gonzaloites once they learn about the Khmer Rouge

Their worldview is unscientific. You just have to educate the people willing to be educated and hope their lessons come back to people like those in your family.

If you can’t agree on the fundamentals, the higher level issues are going to be far too abstract. If compassion and being nice is where they start, you have to meet them there. to be compassionate and nice, an American, especially a liberal American, would have to refute death and killing of any sort. If they are “bothsidesing” the issue, that is consistent with their framework.

This same framework is being constantly reinforced through other family members, middle class liberals, liberal news outlets, government officials, think tanks, and active digital spaces.

Unless you can find someone in the bunch who understands colonialism and struggle/resistance against oppressors, you are only putting yourself on the offensive. Pushing back would just further reinforce their ideas.

Try what Kwame Ture said in response to someone who opposes violence here. Think about the situation. If the only way for a slave to free himself is to kill his master, what should the slave do? Watch part I and II of this speech and ask your family some open ended questions about the oppressed-oppressor relationship. See if you can get anyone to consider that Israel and Palestine are in no way on equal footing. Explain what relationship exists. Explain how oppressed people had to fight for their freedoms. Explain that some anti-colonial forces committed some atrocities while explaining how the relationship makes peace between oppressed and oppressor impossible. Explain how one needs to focus on the primary contradiction, that bringing up one or two atrocities is a tactic used to distract from the broader relationship and the broader moral and compassionate position of the resistance.

If you can’t find a single person within the circle of any family member to get on board with this, you just need to move on to people willing to learn and willing to listen. Educate the others, maybe your family isn’t primed to hear it yet.

I guess my idea is that these are only external contradictions. I wouldn’t really praise or applaud BRICS or multipolarity, but I’d look at them as heightening the contradictions of capitalism, the hegemonic form lead by Wall St. and London. The real goal, of course, requires an actual socialist revolution, or a Communist force that succeeds and wins over swaths of the working class across the globe. or, really, to replace capitalist globalization with proletarian internationalism. Just like the difficulties establishing Communism with the first revolutions, noting the Russian Revolution, we are at another beggining/intermediate phase where any tiny mistake could be put under extreme scrutiny but any tiny success could be seen as a potential “domino effect”.

The only option is to heighten the contradictions at home (meaning, within the head of Empire leading capitalism today via the US). But you can never doubt the depravity of the oppressor(s). If Palestine even dares to consider a chance of victory right now, even if it’s the mind of Israeli hysteria and completely false, there is no shortage of Americans willing to put even the most milquetoast of leftist reformers to death or prison. I’m sure you know what I’m getting at considering my confusion with how neoliberalism works and its relation to fascistic ideology — I’m saying the US will force fascism via the exact means everyone on this forum already has seen and been made aware of. But the Atlanticist modernized and “liberalized”/watered-down fascism of post-WWII, while dominant, is still up against rising, pseudo-internationlist, anti-West fascism with strong contenders.

Getting too excited about this shakey in-between world we are living in is a danger and could just as easily crumble into fascism with a different name and flavor. The alternative media, oligarchs, intellectuals, and networks are already formed.

With how much is going on in the world, I can’t say what compromises are acceptable or not, but I partially want people like you to be correct — it would make the long future go a lot smoother.

Whether or not Trump is actually into full-on fascism is dependent on whether we enter a recession, and how deep the recession hits. I’m going to be so pissed if the only “opposition” on TV ends up being scripted debates with people like Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and reactionaries talking about how they ditched the Libertarian Party…

Why do we need to do favors for the people of other countries to just force them in line with our policies? Why can’t we just let Cuba trade with the US, China and Russia, and the EU, keeping their connection with their usual countries in Latin America and Africa? Easing a brutal foreign policy that has removed billions in value from another country only by strict condition is pretty fucked up. With all the talk with the US and their freedom, we should really let Cuba have real freedom, their own freedom.

Unfortunately wouldn’t be so meaningful without also doing the same for North Korea. North Korea and Cuba are brotherly nations with similar short-term and long-term goals, with great admiration for each other. There is no excuse for most sanctions on these two countries, even by the standards of the US, and each country has made it abundantly clear that they will do everything they can to keep their entire populations educated, fed, housed, and politically active.